Parody: Party in the GSA

posted at 11:50 am on April 5, 2012 by Tina Korbe

Bankrupting America is out with a parody of the General Services Administration’s planning process for its outrageous Western Regions Conference in Las Vegas. How does a government agency with the stated purpose of streamlining the administrative work of the federal government conceive of a conference that cost taxpayers the equivalent of the entire annual income of sixteen U.S. households? Watch and learn:

Occasionally, big spenders desperate to skirt deficit reduction talk of any kind will say that we could eliminate all government waste and still not come close to reducing the deficit — as though that is an excuse to continue wasting taxpayer dollars. While it’s impossible to overestimate the importance of entitlement reform to deficit and debt reduction, this, at least, can be said of entitlement programs: Taxpayers know and expect their dollars to go to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We might not appreciate that nearly half the country pays nothing to maintain the social safety net and we might fret that plans to expand (or not to reform) entitlement programs effectively function as a way for politicians to buy votes — but we’re not blindsided by the use of our taxpayer dollars for those programs. We don’t expect our dollars to go to clowns, mind-readers and commemorative coins — and government officials should be held accountable when they do. Fortunately, in this instance, the scandal led to the resignation of GSA Administrator Martha Johnson, the firing of two of her top aides and the suspension of four GSA managers who organized the conference. Good riddance. From this point forward, whoever was even remotely a part of the planning of the Western Regions Conference better not be allowed to authorize the spending of taxpayer dollars on anything.

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How does a government agency with the stated purpose of streamlining the administrative work of the federal government conceive of a conference that cost taxpayers the equivalent of the entire annual income of sixteen U.S. households?

Because they don’t give a sh*t and they thought they could get away with it. Simple really.

Or, they know this sheite is coming to an end and decided to party like it’s 1999.

There were 300 people at that conference. There should have been 300 calls to the GSA Inspector General concerning fraud and abuse. Anybody who was there should be forced to pay back the American people. Seriously, you don’t have to be all that intelligent to understand that a conference that includes clowns, commemorative coins, and $7K worth of sushi has crossed the line of professional ethics.

But what are we to expect from an administration whose unelected spouse has literally spent millions of tax dollars on vacations and thinks nothing of sending one of the President’s brats off to Mexico with no fewer than 24 Secret Service agents in tow.

But what are we to expect from an administration whose unelected spouse has literally spent millions of tax dollars on vacations and thinks nothing of sending one of the President’s brats off to Mexico with no fewer than 24 Secret Service agents in tow.

Happy Nomad on April 5, 2012 at 12:17 PM

It’s a shame they couldn’t have combined some of these, isn’t it. Maybe the GSA attendees could have taken the first kids on spring break and shared the costs.

This is what the pundits (and others) are telling us: you can’t cut the big stuff, you’ll collapse the economy and the voters won’t stand for it and you can’t cut the little stuff, it’s not enough.

I say: let’s start by cutting the cr*p. And of cr*p this conference is an excellent example.

Besides, isn’t that what one does in one’s own life? If I need money I might not drop my cable bill, I certainly won’t stop paying my rent, but I can stop buying a candy bar every day.

There’s no accountability, I bet things like this go on ALL THE TIME, just this one time news leaked out. Oh, and they went on the conference, didn’t they? So they spent the money and had their fun. This dame will be installed at some other well paid job before we can say ANYBODY BUT OBAMA 2012.

Didn’t Obama say just the other day that $150,000 in the hands of the government is worth so much more, and can pay for so many wonderful things, than if left in the hands of a greedy millionare or billionaire? Obama mentioned things like caring for sick kids and hungry people, etc. … bet if we didn’t have the government wasting money left and right it could pay for those wonderful things without stealing more money from the taxpayers.

Bout 10 years ago I worked with a young woman at a defense contractor. She was hired when her friend who was an employee at the company told her what specific, hard to find, technical skills were being sought by company, and she claimed to have them. She had none of them….zero experience. She was extremely lazy. Any excuse to leave early was utilized. Eventually she quit because of “sick building” disease, when she realized the jig was up. Her next job was at the GSA. She loved it.

Will the Democrat and Rebulican conventions be 100% paid for by the parties or will there be any tax dollars spent? I don’t know the answer to this, but I suspect that these huge parties have a bunch our money being spent.

Maybe I’m off the mark here, but even though there is justifiable ire at the stupidity of spending so much for this conference, for me the problem is more that there was a conference at all.

For cryin’ out loud. These are government workers, not a private company rewarding their sales force for a good season and encouraging them to do even better next year.

These clowns get a paycheck on our dime to do a job, (that they’re not doing very well, it would seem). Show up on time, do your job, and go home at the end of the day. I assume we’re already providing paid vacation time for these ingrates; we owe them nothing more.